learning from the past, shaping the future from the past, shaping the future. ... future generations...

annual report 20182018

Applying the lessons of history to the challenges of today

Learning from the Past,Shaping the Future

C e n t e r f o r t h e S t u dy o f t h e P r e S i d e n Cy & C o n g r e S S

CSPC Board Of Trustees

Maxmillian Angerholzer IIIInstitute of International Education

Wayne L. BermanBlackstone Group

Maury W. BradsherDistrict Equity

Eli BroadThe Broad Foundations

The Honorable R. Nicholas BurnsHarvard Kennedy School

Jay CollinsCiti

Robert DayW.M. Keck Foundation

The Honorable Paula J. DobrianskyHarvard Kennedy School

Bradford M. FreemanFreeman Spogli & Co.

The Honorable David GergenHarvard Kennedy School

Dr. Malik M. HasanHealth Net, Inc. & Health Trio, Inc.

The Honorable Stuart W. HollidayMeridian International Center

Ray R. IraniRay Investments, LLC

Roy KapaniECS Federal

The Honorable Blanche LincolnLincoln Policy Group

Daniel LubinRadius Ventures

The Honorable Mel MartinezJPMorgan Chase & Co.

The Honorable Thomas F. McLarty IIIMcLarty Associates

The Honorable Edwin Meese IIIThe Heritage Foundation

The Honorable Glenn C. Nye IIIPresident & CEOCenter for the Study of the Presidency & Congress

The Honorable Gerald L. ParskyAurora Capital Group

The Honorable Thomas R. PickeringCSPC ChairmanHills & Company

H. Gregory PlattsNational Geographic Society

The Honorable Thomas J. RidgeRidge Global, LLC

The Honorable Mike RogersCNN

Gillian SandlerGalapont

B. Francis Saul IIISaul Investment Group, LLC

Pamela SchollCSPC Vice ChairmanDr. Scholl Foundation

Stephen A. SchwarzmanBlackstone Group

George StephanopoulosABC News

The Honorable Robert H. TuttleTuttle-Click Automotive

The Honorable Togo D. West, Jr.TLI Leadership Group

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When Dwight D. Eisenhower ascend-ed to the presiden-cy, the former Su-

preme Allied Commander lamented the lack of historical case studies to prepare him for civilian political lead-ership. As a military leader, he could

Introduction

Applying Lessons of History to Current Challenges

pour over numerous analyses of previous battles, deploy-ments, and deliberations, yet no similar repository of in-stitutional memory existed for the equally complex arts of governing and legislating. The Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress (CSPC) grew out of that need for an institution dedicated to capturing the historical lessons of governance, and applying them creatively to the challenges confronted by the modern presidency and Congress.

Our Mission

By examining the lessons drawn from the successes and failures of our national leaders, and by relating those les-sons to current challenges facing the country, we provide historical context to the complex art of governance, and propose real, positive solutions to the current challenges confronting our democracy. That mission includes promot-ing enlightened and bipartisan leadership in the presidency and Congress, maintaining a robust space for a civil national dialogue, and proposing innovative solutions to current na-tional challenges. CSPC also works to prepare and inspire future generations to actively participate as citizen leaders, and to incorporate civility, inclusiveness, and character into their lives and public discourse.

Our Work

The Center actively promulgates lessons learned from na-tional leadership challenges through a range of publica-tions. CSPC publishes the premier academic journal on the Presidency, “Presidential Studies Quarterly,” as well as a series of books of case studies: Triumphs and Trag-

edies of the Modern Presidency and Triumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Congress, provid-ing historical examples of transformational leadership. The Center also publishes timely op-eds and blog posts relevant to current na-tional challenges, referencing important his-torical lessons.

In order to promote better policy, CSPC works to bridge gaps between policymakers and leaders in the private sector and academia

by convening stakeholders and influential thought leaders, and engaging them in respectful dialogue that seeks solu-tions to complex challenges. Our signature approach is to organize small, off-the-record roundtables where partic-ipants have a frank and open exchange of ideas leading to better connections between elected leaders and those they represent, and more informed policy outcomes. Our focus often includes areas where emerging technologies, threats, or opportunities require novel approaches, and where a co-ordinated effort will yield the best outcome.

As a non-partisan, non-profit institution, the Center pro-motes bipartisan cooperation among the branches of gov-ernment and within Congress. We encourage civil debate and compromise, and seek to create incentives to bring stakeholders to the common ground necessary for the effec-tive functioning of our federal government.

The Center also acts to encourage public service and foster leadership among future leaders through our Presidential Fel-lows program. In addition, CSPC recognizes and awards cur-rent leaders who exhibit inspirational leadership and biparti-san comity, and whose careers have left a major imprint on the areas of good governance, national security or economics.

Thank you for your interest in the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. We look forward to working with you as we pursue these important aims.

Glenn C. Nye III, President and CEOCenter for the Study of the Presidency & Congress

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Section ITriumphs and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency & CongressThe Presidency: The Triumphs and Tragedies of a President’s First Year 4The Congress: The Tragedy of Partisan Polarization 8Political Reform: A Roadmap to Political Civility and Effective Government 12The White House: Presidential Studies Quarterly 14

Section IIProject Solarium 2018Autonomous Vehicle Policy: A Future of Driverless Cars 16Cybersecurity: Winning the Cyberspace Race 18Space Policy: Harnessing Commercial Innovation to Secure the Highest Ground 20Future Policy Programs: At the Intersection of Politics & Innovation 22Government Reform: Improving the Business of Government 24

Section IIIMedia Outreach and Leadership DevelopmentCSPC in the Media: Timely Commentary on National Challenges 26Annual Leadership Awards: Honoring Bipartisan Leadership and Strategic Vision 28Presidential Fellows: Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders 30

Section IVOn Strategy, Security and National RenewalCounterterrorism: Lessons from America’s Longest War 32Parting Shot: A Strategy for American Renewal 36

Cover Photo: Rob BakerPhotos: Rob Baker, Sgt. Justin Updegraff, Flickr

Editor: James Kitfield Design: Jan Zimmeck DesignPolicy Director: Dan MahaffeeResearch: Joshua HuminskiProduction Assistants: Sara Spancake, Hurst Renner, Jordana Schmierer

Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress601 Thirteenth Street, NW Suite 1050NWashington, DC 20005202.872.9800www.thepresidency.org

Contents

Section One

Triumphs & Tragedies of the Modern Presidency and CongressThe CenTer for The STudy of The PreSidenCy & CongreSS (CSPC) originally grew out of President dwight eisenhower’s expressed wish for an insti-tution dedicated to capturing the historical lessons of governance and applying them creatively to the challenges confronted by the modern presidency and Congress. as a former military leader, eisenhower lamented the lack of scholarship and case stud-ies to prepare him for the complex art of governance in the way that the war colleges and military schools had prepared him for military leadership. With our anthologies of case studies in modern governance, Triumph and Tragedies of the Modern Presidency, and Triumph and Tragedies of the Modern Congress; our regular scholarly examination of presidential leadership “Presidential Studies Quarterly;” and our ongoing political reform initiatives, CSPC has stayed true to that mission of bringing the lessons of his-tory and the spirit of reform to the complex art of governance.

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The Presidency

The Triumphs and Tragedies of a President’s First Year

Much has been written about the ahistorical nature of Donald Trump, the first person elected president of the United States

without ever serving in government or the mili-tary. Indeed, to anchor some of Trump’s pro-tectionist and populist positions in a historical context, political scientists and historians have reached back all the way to the mercantilism of eighteenth-century Europe, and the populism of President Andrew Jackson in early nineteenth-century America.

Despite his determination to challenge the orthodox-ies of the current political system and international or-der, however, Trump has been unable to fully escape his-

tory. The same powerful forces that both empowered and constrained his modern predecessors have shaped his administration’s first year in office, for good and ill. Trump’s triumphs have revealed familiar alignments of political actors and motivations, just as his tragedies have followed a recognizable script. As Mark Twain re-putedly mused, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

The Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress recently published the anthology Triumphs & Tragedies of the Modern Presidency: Case Studies in Presidential Leadership. In it we asked some of the top historians, journalists and politi-cal scientists in the country to search for and identify those rhymes and cadences of history. Our writers examined the first one hundred days of every post–World War II presi-dent, and looked at their domestic and foreign policy mile-stones that laid the foundation for the “American Century.” These case studies offer important lessons in successful


presidential leadership, as well as pitfalls that any adminis-tration would do well to avoid.

A Quick Start

Virtually every president of the modern era has chafed at the “First One Hundred Days” as an artificial measuring stick, one set impossibly high by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression, when he shepherded fif-teen major new laws through a compliant Congress. And yet none of FDR’s predecessors have fully escaped the “hundred days” expectations game, in part because the liftoff phase is when new presidents and ad-ministrations are at their most aspirational, and thus revealing. The personalities and priorities illuminated in this early period of governing make an indelible first impression, giving the new administration a chance to de-velop a presidential narrative before the po-litical winds inevitably shift.

The first hundred days are also when elec-tion headwinds are at their strongest, and mandates can be claimed and leveraged. A president’s party almost al-ways loses congressional seats in midterm elections, for instance, making it imperative that a new administration starts strong. Lyndon B. Johnson, the master legislator and presidential arm twister who early on achieved one of the most transformative legislative agendas in modern history, described this phenomenon best.

“I keep hitting hard because I know this honeymoon won’t last. Every day I lose a little more political capital. That’s why we have to keep at it, never letting up,” Johnson said. “One day soon, I don’t know when, the critics and the snipers will move in and we will be at stalemate. [After a few months law-makers will] all be thinking about their reelections. I’ll have made mistakes, my polls will be down, and they’ll be trying to put some distance between themselves and me.”

While every modern president confronts a different set of challenges, and their administrations must navigate spe-cific economic, domestic, and geopolitical landscapes, one constant has been the increasing size and complexity of the U.S. government itself. As the country grew into its mantle as the leader of the Western democracies after World War II, becoming an undisputed superpower in the Cold War and post–Cold War eras, the apparatus of the federal gov-ernment that presidents must manage necessarily grew in breadth and scope.

Modern presidents have to stock massive executive-

branch bureaucracies responsible for overseeing the largest economy in the world, and underwriting an international order that is largely dependent on the United States to en-force its rules and norms with a globe-spanning diplomat-ic corps and military. They have to appoint no fewer than fifteen Cabinet secretaries, and shepherd more than one thousand political appointees through an increasingly cum-bersome vetting and confirmation process. Meanwhile, the average time required for Senate confirmation of a top-level political appointee has grown from less than three months

during the Kennedy administration to roughly nine months in the twenty-first century.

New administrations also often overreact in distancing themselves from the previous administration, falling into avoidable mistakes. As George Mason political scientist and presidential scholar James Pfiffner writes in Triumph & Tragedies, John Kennedy overreacted against President Dwight Eisenhower’s seemingly cumbersome national se-curity policy process by abolishing it, and the resulting lack of organization arguably led to the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. President Jimmy Carter, reacting against the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s White House-centered administration, tried to initially run his presidency without a chief of staff; he soon realized this was impossible given the size of the modern White House.

The unexpected nature of Trump’s victory—and a contro-versial campaign that saw more than 120 Republican national security and foreign affairs experts sign “Never Trump” let-ters that led the Trump team to blacklist them—greatly com-plicated efforts to quickly stock the Trump administration with appointees. The Trump transition team simply had less time to prepare than more traditional campaigns, and less support from the establishment Republican bench.

The Trump team arguably got off to a good start by quickly naming former Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus as his chief of staff shortly after the election. By naming anti-establishment populist Steve

The liftoff phase is when new presidents and administrations are at their most aspirational, and thus revealing.


noted historian Michael Beschloss writes in Triumphs & Trag-edies. “Having witnessed numerous presidential failures with Congress, Johnson designed his programs from the ground up in concert with influential Members of Congress.”

As the classic outsider, Trump has wisely leaned heavily on vice president and former congressman Mike Pence to keep the channels of communication to Capitol Hill open and the Republican caucus united behind his agenda. After his frequent criticisms of fellow Republicans failed to unite a fractious Republican caucus behind his “repeal and replace-ment” of Obamacare, Trump wisely adjusted and relied on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to pass the year-ending GOP tax reform bill, the most far-reaching overhaul of the tax code in three decades.

Overloading Congressional Circuits

Another common mistake of new presidents is trying to ram through an overly ambitious agenda that trips circuit breakers on Capitol Hill. Jimmy Carter made that mistake by rapidly pushing a long list of proposals for specific new legislation, in-cluding bills on energy conservation, tax reform, hospital cost control and welfare reform, among many other initiatives.

Ronald Reagan learned from Carter’s mistakes. His tran-sition team decided to focus on just a few major policy pri-orities. Reagan was also aided by a clearly articulated gov-erning philosophy that was well understood by his team. “Reagan repeatedly pledged to cut taxes, boost military spending, and balance the federal budget by reducing do-mestic spending,” Lou Cannon, Reagan’s biographer, writes in Triumphs & Tragedies.

By contrast, Trump presented Congress with an agenda that would have been ambitious under any circumstances, leading with a controversial policy that united Democrats in opposition and for nine months consumed much of the en-ergy on Capitol Hill: “repealing and replacing” Obamacare. Stacked up behind are Trump’s call for a massive $1 trillion infrastructure bill, the “largest ever” buildup of the U.S. military, and funding for a controversial border wall. By fol-lowing the lead of Congressional Republicans and focusing on a once-in-a generation tax reform bill, however, Trump was able to notch an important legislative victory to seal his first year in office.

The Bully Pulpit & Crisis Management

In his continued ability to connect with the raucous crowds that represent his base, Trump follows in the tradition of

Bannon of Breitbart News notoriety as an apparently coequal White House counselor, however, Trump created compet-ing power centers in the West Wing that often clashed in the early months of the administration, slowing the process of appointing personnel and muddling the policy agenda. The resulting chaos in the White House persisted into the sum-mer until both Priebus and Bannon were ultimately exiled, and retired Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, then head of the Department of Homeland Security, was brought in as chief of staff in late July to instill much needed discipline into the White House decision-making process. By most accounts he has succeeded in that mission.

Electoral Mandates

Presidents who win in landslides like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson obviously have distinct advantages in their early going. As only the fourth president in U.S. his-tory to win in the Electoral College only to lose the popu-lar vote, Trump had a more limited mandate. Like FDR, LBJ and Barack Obama, however, his party has initially enjoyed majority control in Congress, though not a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Trump took a page from the first hundred days of George W. Bush, who at the time of his election was the first presi-dent in a century to lose the popular vote. After the Supreme Court intervened to eventually swing the election his way, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney rejected the idea of scaling back their ambitions given a razor-thin margin of victory. “To do so would show weakness from the start, the two reasoned,” Peter Baker, New York Times chief White House correspondent, writes in Triumphs & Tragedies.

Yet Trump has also stumbled into two of the most com-mon mistakes made by new presidents: underestimating the power lawmakers have to delay or derail a presidential agen-da, and failing to recognize the need to nurture good relations with key members of Congress. That has been especially true of chief executives who ran as Washington outsiders, such as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, who chose not to even send a first-year domestic program to Congress; and Jimmy Carter, who after the Nixon impeachment rode an anti-Washington wave to the White House, and surrounded himself with aides from Georgia who often kept Congress at arm’s length.

The modern gold standard in congressional relations was once again Lyndon Johnson, the “Master of the Senate.” “It is almost impossible to overestimate how much LBJ benefited from having served in Congress for twenty-seven years, six years of which he spent as Majority Leader in the Senate,” the


modern presidents who have mastered the bully pulpit of the White House, whether it was Barack Obama’s soaring ora-tory, or the self-deprecating wit of former actor Ronald Rea-gan, “the great communicator.” In his unprecedented use of Twitter, Trump has also inhabited a new communications medium like no president since Franklin Roosevelt used ra-dio and his “fireside chats” to connect directly with an anx-ious public, and the telegenic John F. Kennedy created the aura of “Camelot” at the dawn of the age of television.

As a direct conduit to Trump the provocateur, however, Twitter has proven a double-edged medium. Trump’s unfil-tered Tweets help explain why he entered the Oval Office with the lowest approval rating of any modern American president, and has struggled to broaden his base of support or raise his poll numbers ever since.

Another narrative thread that runs consistently through the case studies in Triumphs & Tragedies is the testing of new presidents by crisis. Of course, many administrations are born of crisis. Franklin Roosevelt assumed power at the height of the Great Depression. Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office on Air Force One after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Gerald Ford’s ascension ended what he called the “long national nightmare” of Watergate and the Nixon impeachment. Barack Obama’s first weeks and months in the Oval Office were consumed by a global finan-cial meltdown and the Great Recession. And then there were the presidents who inherited hot wars that demanded im-mediate attention and decisions with life-or-death conse-

quences, including Harry Truman (World War II), Dwight Eisenhower (the Korean War), Richard Nixon (Vietnam) and Barack Obama (Iraq and Afghanistan). For those who would lead “the indispensable nation,” crisis is always lurk-ing just beyond the visible horizon.

Now it’s President Trump’s turn. In his first year in of-fice Trump has already confronted an escalating crisis with a nuclear armed North Korea, and hot wars against Islamist extremists in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Confronted with those challenges, the retired and active-duty gener-als Trump has surrounded himself with have walked back some of the most controversial of Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements.

Trump initially called the United States’ bedrock se-curity alliance NATO “obsolete,” and then decided it was not obsolete after all. He called for renegotiating the One China policy with Beijing, and promised to label it a cur-rency manipulator, and then backed off on both fronts as China’s importance in the North Korean crisis became clearer. A threat to scuttle the NAFTA trade agreement with Mexico and Canada has been put on hold as of this writing.

These policy reversals can be viewed as welcome evi-dence of an outspoken candidate and inexperienced com-mander-in-chief maturing in the Oval Office, the world’s most unforgiving crucible. The history of the modern presi-dency suggests that there are plenty of triumphs, tragedies and hard lessons still to come. Q

For those who would lead the “indispensable nation,” crisis is always lurking just beyond the visible horizon.


The Congress

The Tragedy of Partisan Polarization

An important step lawmakers could take as an antidote to Washington’s increasingly corrosive political culture would be to heed the pleas of one of their standard bearers. Last July, Sen. John McCain, R-Az., fresh from the surgeon’s knife and a diagnosis of brain cancer, returned to the Sen-ate floor to entreat his colleagues to recapture the spirit of consensus-building that is the lifeblood of a representative democracy. That kind of debate once made the Senate the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” but as McCain noted, “I’m not sure we can claim that distinction with a straight face today.”

“Our deliberations today—not just our debates, but the exercise of all our responsibilities… are more partisan, more tribal and more of the time than any other time I remem-ber,” McCain told his colleagues. “Our deliberations can still be important and useful, but I think we’d all agree they haven’t been overburdened with greatness lately. And right now they aren’t producing much for the American people.”

McCain’s speech was notable for the institutional memory he brought to the argument. As a sena-tor of thirty years standing, he re-called the many times when biparti-san majorities in Congress not only dared, but achieved great reforms together.

“I’ve known and admired men and women of the Senate who played much more than a small role in our history, true statesmen, gi-ants of American politics,” McCain said in what is destined to become a landmark speech by a lion of the Senate. “They knew that however sharp and heartfelt their disputes, however keen their ambitions, they had an obligation to work collaboratively to ensure the Sen-ate discharged its constitutional responsibilities effective-ly. Our responsibilities are important, vitally important, to the continued success of our Republic.”

At the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, we recently published Triumphs & Tragedies of the Modern Congress, an anthology of case studies in governance in the post-World War II era. In it we examined many of those legislative milestones that McCain referenced, which have shaped the contours of modern America. We profiled many of the “giants of American politics” who worked across the political aisle to lay them, to include Republicans like Rob-ert Taft, Gerald Ford, Richard Lugar, Newt Gingrich, and McCain himself; and Democrats like Sam Rayburn, Richard Russell, Thomas “Tip” O’Neill, Sam Nunn, Ted Kennedy, and Nancy Pelosi. Their often contentious adventures in bi-partisanship and landmark achievements are worth remem-bering, perhaps now more than ever before.

The fact that Congress increasingly struggles to execute even regular re-sponsibilities such as passing a budget or raising the debt ceiling should alarm

everyone who believes in the American experiment in self-governance. Even after passing landmark tax legislation at the end of the year without a single Democratic vote, Congressional Republicans had to resort to a “continuing resolution” to keep the government running during the holidays, kicking urgent issues involving defense spending, immigra-tion and health care into the New Year. Even one-party rule is not enough to overcome the dysfunc-tion that now infects the nation’s capital.

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Many have forgotten, for instance, the overwhelming bi-partisan Congressional support for Democratic President Harry Truman’s signature post-World War II achievements such as creating the NATO alliance and establishing the Marshall Plan. The strength of that bipartisan support laid the foundation for the “American Century.”

Liberal Democrats such as Rep. Hale Boggs of Louisiana worked closely with Republican President Dwight Eisen-

hower to support the Interstate High-way System, called the biggest public works program since the pyramids. Re-publican Senate Minority Leader Ever-ett Dirksen, R.-Il., worked closely with Democratic President Lyndon Johnson to pass the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, overcoming the opposition of South-ern “Dixiecrats.” Democratic House

Speaker Tip O’Neill Jr., D-Mass., was likewise instrumental in helping Republican President Ronald Reagan pass major Social Security reform in 1983 and a wide-ranging tax re-form in 1986. Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, Az., and Democratic Rep. Bill Nichols, Ala., teamed together to pass the landmark 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorgani-zation Act, the most important reorganization of the U.S. military since the 1947 National Security Act.

The ideological sorting out of the two political parties means that liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats have become endangered species.


ably conservative or liberal outlets creates partisan echo chambers that also diminish the motivation and public support for compromise. The emergence of new campaign and communication technologies make continuous poll-ing and public relations irresistible to politicians, adding to the incentive to champion policies that poll well and drive wedges between rival politicians and their potential voters. Meanwhile, the increased costs of reaching voters across new media and communications platforms, and the need to continually pay for pollsters and consultants, has intensified the non-stop cycle of fund-raising, leaving less time for thoughtful deliberation and personal interactions across the political aisle.

The net result of those powerful forces is something akin to a perpetual political campaign that never pauses for the painstaking business of collective governance. In his Triumph & Tragedies case study “Zero-Sum Governing: The Permanent Campaign,” veteran Congressional observ-er and CSPC senior fellow Norman Ornstein describes that

debilitating dynamic.“With the stakes so high – dra-

matically different agendas for the two parties, and marginal chang-es in a handful of seats potentially making the difference between ma-jority and minority status – build-ing coalitions across party lines to make policy became less and less desirable, while dramatizing dif-

ferences and demonizing the other side became more and more attractive,” Ornstein writes. “The combination of the proliferation of safe seats in general elections, the rise of primaries in campaigns for House and Senate seats, and new channels for big and often anonymous donations of money through outside groups…has pressured lawmak-ers to move further toward the extreme, and discouraged them from voting for compromises that make them targets of ideologically driven hits.”

In “Zero-Sum Governing,” Ornstein leaves little doubt that the costs of this “permanent campaign” are deep and broad. “Campaigning is a zero-sum game – there is a win-ner and a loser, and nothing in between. It is no coincidence that campaigns often use the metaphors of war. Govern-ing in the American political system, on the other hand…requires building coalitions, usually broad coalitions, and any significant changes in policy require broad leadership consensus to build a broad public sense of legitimacy.”

Even in a time of bitter partisanship, Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia teamed with Democrat-ic President Bill Clinton to pass welfare reform in 1996, the most sweeping overhaul of safety net programs in decades. Likewise the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Re-form Act of 2002, co-sponsored by McCain and liberal Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wi., set limits on campaign financing be-fore being struck down later by the Supreme Court. Liberal icon Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy, D-Mass., worked closely with Republican President George W. Bush to pass the “No Child Left Behind” education reform bill, one of Bush’s sig-nature domestic achievements.

In recent decades such attempts at bipartisan consen-sus, however, have labored against increasingly powerful currents of partisanship. The reasons for that increased polarization are complex, but as William & Mary political science professor C. Lawrence Evans, author of Congress Under Fire, writes in Triumphs & Tragedies, one unforeseen root cause was the civil rights revolutions of the 1960s. As

a result “conservative Southerners shifted their allegiance from the Democratic to the Republican Party, which helped sort the two congressional parties more cleanly along ideo-logical lines,” Evans notes. Meanwhile, modern campaign fund-raising strategies enabled party elites to better mo-bilize and respond to their respective conservative and lib-eral bases. “As a result, by the 1990s and 2000s, partisan polarization within the Congress had reached historically high levels.”

The ideological sorting out of the two political par-ties means that moderate and liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats have become endangered spe-cies. Increasingly sophisticated gerrymandering of safe Congressional districts also ensures that Republicans and Democrats alike fear a primary challenge from their hard right or hard left, respectively, more than a general election opponent that might pull them towards the cen-ter. The fracturing of the media environment into reli-

Public alienation, cynicism, and distaste for politics and political institutions have reached new highs, even as approval of Congress has plummeted to new lows.


Permanent campaigns are also costly, meaning less time spent on deliberating and more devoted to “call time” with donors to raise money. That non-stop pandering of politicians to wealthy donors and corporations has its own corrupting influence. The prioritizing of policy also be-comes skewed, as major national issues too often take a back seat to wedge issues that excite partisan passions and news outlets that thrive on conflict and controversy. “De-bate and deliberation, the hallmarks of a functional legis-lative process in Congress, are dropped in favor of posi-tion taking, political attacks and harsh rhetoric” leading to a “coarsened political culture,” writes Ornstein. The inevitable result is that “public alienation, cynicism, and distaste for politics and political institutions have reached new highs, even as approval of Congress has plummeted to new lows.”

Congress’ inability to solve big problems such as health care, immigration, or crumbling infrastructure, combined with public alienation and anger at politics and politicians, has created a dangerous downward spiral in which prob-lem-solving members of Congress decide to quit in frustra-tion rather than face the constant negativity and dysfunc-tion. It’s hard not to see that dynamic at work in the recent retirement announcement by Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee who in 2013 received CSPC’s Publius Award for his civil and bipar-tisan leadership in Congress.

“The more negative [the political] atmosphere becomes,

the more amenable it is to ideologues and demagogues who can exploit anger and frustration,” notes Ornstein.

One of the missions of the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress in the months and years ahead will be to examine political reforms that might reverse this de-bilitating dynamic in our politics and political culture. In the meantime, we encourage lawmakers to recognize the wisdom in Senator McCain’s advice, delivered from the floor of the once and hopefully future “greatest delibera-tive body in the world.”

“Let’s trust each other. Let’s return to regular order. We’ve been spinning our wheels on too many important is-sues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle. That’s an approach that’s been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires. And we’re getting nothing done,” McCain said. There’s greater satisfaction in respecting our differences, McCain said, and reaching good-faith agreements that help improve the lives and pro-tect the American people.

“The Senate is capable of that. We know that. We’ve seen it before. I’ve seen it happen many times,” McCain said with a note of optimism born of institutional memory. “And the times when I was involved in even a modest way with working out a bipartisan response to a national prob-lem or threat are the proudest moments of my career, and by far the most satisfying.” Q

‘Triumphs & Tragedies’ examines the legislative milestones that shaped modern America, and the ‘giants of American politics’ who worked across the political aisle to lay them.

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This divisiveness further turns off more moderate voters who lose interest in participating in general elections where the outcome seems pre-ordained. The huge role of money in politics feeds the perception of government corruption and stokes deep cynicism, leading record numbers of vot-ers to conclude that the American political system is rigged. As common-sense voters turn away from politics, they yield electoral power and influence on our government to the most radical voters, who increasingly control the national debate. And the downward spiral continues.

Perpetual campaigns designed to divide us no longer pause for the consensus-building act of bipartisan gov-ernance. The resulting political dysfunction means that serious problems fester, whether it’s crumbling national infrastructure, ballooning debt or an overstretched mili-tary. Our government fails to deliver a consistent sense of stability. A society thus divided against itself becomes steadily weaker with each passing year, less able to rally itself to overcome the mounting challenges that lie ahead. Foreign adversaries recognize and seek to exploit those divisions to weaken us further. An increasingly fractured media, in the pursuit of controversy and dramatic, atten-

A Roadmap to Political Civility and Effective Government

Our current political system has been skewed far from the Founders’ original intent. Efforts by political parties to manipulate the system to their short-term advantage have exacted a great cost in terms of our government’s ability to effectively deliver on its basic responsibilities. Computer-assisted gerrymandering allows lawmakers to choose their voters, rather than the other way around. That largely cre-ates ideologically homogenous districts where politicians, whose only real competition is likely to come from prima-ry challenges, are rewarded for playing to their respective bases on the far left and right. These ideologically rigid vot-ers cheer elected officials who speak in contemptuous tones about political rivals, and embrace an absolute adherence to dogma that destroys any hope of finding common ground.

Political Reform

In July of 2017, Sen. John McCain gave a landmark speech on the floor of the Senate entreating his colleagues to recapture the spirit of consensus-building that is the life-

blood of a representative democracy. It should be taken as a teachable moment for a Congress head-ed down a dead-end path of hyper-partisanship and gridlock. The first step towards recapturing that lost common ground, McCain argued, was to reject the incivility and petulance that increas-ingly dominates our national political discourse.


among citizens, eventually enabling cooperation, and a healthy republic.

But civility alone is not sufficient to reverse the down-ward spiral gripping our politics. We must also address the incentives driving the actions of our elected officials. Only by realigning the incentives in our political system can we reconnect with a broad range of the American citizenry who hunger for an effective government able to perform its basic responsibilities, and also confront serious challenges both at home and abroad. To achieve this it is necessary to reform the incentive structure in our political system so that elected officials can both do the right thing and be re-warded by their constituents with re-election.

A Roadmap to Hope

Fortunately there are a variety of often under-reported ef-forts to achieve positive change in our politics and gover-nance, addressing issues such as gerrymandering, limiting the influence of money in politics, reforming the electoral system, educating voters, and recalibrating institutional incentives to favor compromise. There are also a growing number of individuals looking for a way to help in this im-portant endeavor. At CSPC we will build on our tradition of assembling transformative national figures and, through

a political reform initiative, gather the positive forces for change; catalogue ex-isting work being done to fix the problem of our dysfunctional politics and caus-tic national debate; and identify both the most effective approaches to reform, and the roadblocks to progress.

The Center will work to change the national conversation to highlight prac-

tical solutions and consensus-building. We will convene the most important stakeholders, and provide a space for off-the-record exchanges of ideas among officials and the private sector. Additionally, we will steer resources to-wards the most promising reform efforts and leverage our networks of thought leaders to publish widely on the topic of political reform.

Many of our fellow citizens have become despondent that our current politics can ever be fixed, given that its dysfunction benefits so many players. But despair is not a strategy. Our goal at CSPC is to give motivated citi-zens a roadmap to become directly involved in reforming our politics and governance and reclaiming the common ground necessary to tackle our national challenges. Q

tion-grabbing narratives, further strengthens the impres-sion among voters that the system is hopelessly broken. In a recent Washington Post poll, an overwhelming 71 percent majority of Americans agreed that the country’s politics have reached a dangerous low point.

The Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress has always embraced the mission of promoting enlight-ened leadership and effective governance, while encour-aging leaders to maintain civility in our national dialogue. The value of political civility goes far beyond simply using respectful language. True civility means acknowledging that your fellow citizens love and believe in this country, and wish it to prosper, just as much as you do. From that kind of civility flows reasoned debate, which builds trust

Our goal is to give motivated citizens a roadmap to become directly involved in reforming our politics and governance.


The White House

Timely Research

“Presidential Studies Quarterly” not only highlights the lat-est scholarly research and thinking about the Presidency, but it also discusses topics that are of current interest in the field in features such as “The Polls,” “The Law,” “The Con-temporary Presidency,” and “Source Material.”

Blind Reviewed Articles

PSQ evaluates submitted research through a “double blind” peer review process which ensures that readers receive only the highest-quality, objective scholarship that is free from partisan editing or selection. The editorial board members include some of the most renowned scholars and profes-sionals in the discipline:

Editor George C. Edwards III, Texas A&M University

Managing Editor Hayley Ellisor, Texas A&M University

Book Review Editor, The Presidency and Rhetoric James J. Kimble, Seton Hall University

Book Review Editor, Presidency and History Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, Naval War College

Book Review Editor, Presidency and Political Science and Law Nancy Kassop, SUNY New Paltz

Feature Editor: The Law Louis Fisher, Library of Congress

Feature Editors: Polls and Elections Jeffrey Cohen, Fordham University, Costas Panagopoulas, Fordham University

Feature Editor: The Contemporary PresidencyJames Pfiffner, George Mason University

Feature Editor: The Historical Presidency Richard J. Ellis, Willamette University Q

Presidential Studies Quarterly (PSQ) is the only scholarly journal that focuses entirely on the most powerful political figure in the world—the President of the

United States. An indispensable resource for under-standing the U.S. president, the online-only “Presi-dential Studies Quarterly” (PSQ) offers articles, features, review essays, and book reviews covering all aspects of the office. Containing award-winning articles, PSQ is published by Wiley-Blackwell and edited by the distinguished Presidential scholar Dr. George C. Edwards III. Wiley-Blackwell Publish-ing issues the journal four times annually in March, June, September, and December.

Presidential Studies Quarterly

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On Strategy, Security, and National RenewalCSPC HAS A LoNG PEDIGREE operating at the intersection of strategy and national security, including playing a critical role in convening the 2006 Iraq Study Group, which was co-chaired by former Secretary of State and Republican James Baker, and former Congressman and Democrat Lee Hamilton. At a critical juncture in the Iraq war, the Iraq Study Group report provided valuable bipartisan policy options for turning the tide in the conflict. The next year CSPC co-convened a similar, bipartisan Afghanistan Study Group, co-chaired by Ambassador Thomas Pickering, CSPC Chairman, and former Na-tional Security Adviser General James Jones.

U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have learned and adapted con-stantly during a decade-and-a-half of fighting a “global war against jihadi terrorists,” as have our determined and adaptive enemies. After covering the conflicts in Iraq and Af-ghanistan over many years, CSPC Senior Fellow James Kitfield spent recent years inter-viewing many of the top U.S. leaders in this long conflict in an effort to capture those lessons in his book “Twilight Warriors: The Soldiers, Spies and Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War” (Basic Books, 2016). Their insights are dis-tilled in “Lessons from America’s Longest War.”

In “A Strategy for American Renewal,” former CSPC Chairman and President David M. Abshire, a co-founder of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former U.S. Ambassador to NATo, draws on his career spent at the center of power in Washing-ton to offer both a warning about a nation dangerously adrift, and an optimistic path for-ward. This essay is excerpted from Abshire’s forthcoming, posthumous memoir, “States-man: Reflections on a Life Guided by Civility, Strategic Leadership, and the Lessons of History” (Rowan and Littlefield).

Section Two

Project Solarium 2018ShorTly afTer being eleCTed PreSidenT in 1952, dwight d. eisenhower embarked upon what would become known as “Project Solarium”—a strategic review that would evaluate the breadth of policy options that existed in the early days of the Cold War. from that exercise, eisenhower developed the “long haul” strategy that balanced the threats from abroad with the need for policies that emphasized strength at home, culminating in america’s post-World War ii ascendance as a global super-power and standard bearer of the Western democracies.

With its Project Solarium 2018 initiatives, CSPC seeks to remain true to the spirit of the original: encouraging “out of the box” thinking and working to bridge gaps be-tween government policymakers and lawmakers on the one side, and leaders in the private sector and academia on the other. in each of our projects we convene stake-holders and influential thought leaders and engage them in respectful dialogue that seeks to leverage emerging technologies and find novel solutions to the complex challenges facing the nation.



Autonomous Vehicle Policy

A Future of Driverless Cars

roadways. Autonomous vehicle technologies that were once relegated to the realm of science fiction are being incorpo-rated into a wide range of vehicles even today, though many drivers have yet to realize it. Players ranging from tradi-tional automakers to major tech companies to small start-ups are rushing to embrace this revolutionary technology by developing prototype vehicles that operate with little-to-no human input.

The commercialization of this technology promises to dramatically alter our nation’s transporta-tion network. In the short term, it will impact transportation safety, efficiency, and accessi-bility. Commercialization will also create sec-ond- and third-order effects related to jobs, urban planning, economic models, and road-way rules and regulations. Along with its many benefits, this technology will also raise under-standable public concerns about the safety of these vehicles on public roadways, and the po-tential displacement of jobs related to trans-portation. For policymakers, the most pressing challenges will involve crafting a regulatory regime that fosters innovation, ensures safety, and balances the equities of stakeholders at the federal, state, and local levels.

The development of autonomous vehicles presents a clear challenge for policymakers. Al-ready the rate of technological change is rap-idly outpacing a regulatory regime based on more than a century of human operation, rais-ing unresolved issues related to regulation, li-ability, and insurance. There are also questions surrounding licensing and registration of these vehicles, technical standards, and security and safety requirements. Many of these topics are being addressed at the state and local levels, with the Federal Government focusing on its key role of setting national safety standards and requirements. While industry is moving forward, the unsettled regulatory landscape impacting these technologies requires urgent

In the foreseeable future autonomous mo-tor vehicles will pick up passengers, navigate through the streets of city centers and ru-ral byways, and react to roadway obstacles

quicker and more safely than humans. Various mod-els of autonomous vehicles are already being tested in research facilities and, increasingly, on public


dialogue between innovators, industry, and government.Despite the many uncertainties there is no question that

the United States is now on the cusp of a global transporta-tion revolution. The continued development and commer-cial deployment of autonomous vehicles promises to com-pletely reshape the transportation environment through increased transportation accessibility, efficiency, and, most importantly, safety. Innovation in this field will transform how Americans use their time spent in cars, and transform the paradigm of car ownership and utilization. If it remains a leader in autonomous vehicle technology, the United States can ensure that its vehicle manufacturing and high-

tech industries remain competitive on the world stage. As this technology evolves our political and private sec-

tor leaders must continue to advocate on its behalf, recog-nizing its vast potential. While there will undoubtedly be major challenges along the way—as there always are with rapid technological advancements—they cannot be used as an excuse to erect regulatory or political roadblocks that stifle innovation and keep this promising technology from reaching its full potential. Policymakers and regula-tors should thus avoid the temptation to address hypotheti-cal concerns with premature regulations, and instead let the autonomous vehicle landscape mature. Most importantly, they should approach the autonomous vehicle future with an open mind, aware of its benefits and ready to ensure that technology, innovation, and enterprise are matched by safe-ty, reliability and accessibility.

Beyond issues specific to transportation and the adop-tion of autonomous vehicle technology, this CSPC study serves as a useful examination of the many issues policy-makers will face as technology advances at an ever-faster pace. Already regulatory and political processes are strug-gling to keep pace with rapid technological change, and a cultural divide is growing between government policymak-ers and regulators on the one side, and private sector inno-vators on the other. The United States can remain a leader in high-tech development and at the forefront of global inno-vation, but only if we continue to foster respectful dialogue among the primary stakeholders and together seek creative solutions that unleash the full potential of these cutting-edge technologies. Q

POliCy TAkEAWAyS

T the development of autonomous vehicle technology and “driverless cars” will reshape transportation.

T Major policy questions remain unanswered regarding the testing and adoption of this technology.

T Clearer delineation between Federal and State roles is necessary.

T technology-neutral policy puts innovation “in the driver’s seat,” not politicians or regulators.

T the adoption of this technology requires a broader analysis of automation in the u.S. economy.

Despite many uncertainties there is no question that the United States is now on the cusp of a global transportation revolution.


Cybersecurity

Winning the Cyberspace Race

When the Soviet Union launched Sputnik in 1957, it was the space shot heard around the world. The United States answered

with a “Space Race” that required reshaping our educational system to produce scientists, engi-neers, and mathematicians capable of exploring this new frontier. our response to Sputnik helped our nation to land the first man on the moon—and to create a space infrastructure that to this day fosters national security, economic prosper-ity, and scientific discovery.

The growing list of major cyberattacks on this country amount to a modern-day “Sputnik” moment. A wide spec-trum of private-sector entities, from banks and credit agen-cies to the entertainment industry, have all been attacked

by foreign governments and criminal enterprises alike. U.S. infrastructure vital to the energy, water, and communica-tions sectors is constantly probed by adversaries seeking an asymmetric advantage. Russia has already exploited cyberspace to target our democratic institutions. Incred-ibly, with the recent Equifax breach, up to 44 percent of the American people may have had their personal data compro-mised online.

To date, however, efforts to raise cyber defenses have largely focused on technical aspects. The United States must also necessarily continue leading in areas such as cryptogra-phy, supercomputing, quantum computing, artificial intelli-gence, and other cutting-edge tools. However, while these capabilities are necessary for meeting the challenge of cy-bersecurity, they are no longer sufficient.

For the past six years, CSPC has gathered leaders from the business, law enforcement, academic, and gov-ernment communities to identify better ways to meet our modern-day Sputnik moment. With the leadership


of CSPC Trustee and Distinguished Fellow Mike Rogers and the Mike Rogers Center on Intelligence and Global Affairs, our Global Digital Challenge Initiative is examin-ing Internet “Rules of the Road,” and exploring new ways to update them to reflect the proliferation of networked systems in virtually all human endeavors. We are also ex-amining how cutting-edge tools, cyber insurance under-writing, and information sharing policies can enable more flexible and adaptive responses than current ones based primarily on government regulation.

Beyond examining these policy approaches, CSPC has partnered with Montreat College of North Carolina to ex-plore new ways to build the cyber workforce of the future, with an emphasis on meeting rapidly evolving security chal-lenges. To create the human capital necessary to prosper in a cyber-centric world, we are examining how curriculums from pre-K through mid-career education can promote not only strong technical skills, but also skills related to criti-cal thinking, contextual analysis, communication, manage-ment, ethics, and character development.

A key takeaway from these discussions is the need for

a more holistic approach to technical education. Students must appreciate the practical relationships between these technical disciplines and daily life, fostering a technical cu-riosity that begins in early childhood and spans long careers. Such an approach will ensure that innovation and adaptabil-ity become second nature in our approach to cyber.

Considering the first-, second-, and third-order effects of cyberattacks — on both government institutions and pri-vate companies — makes clear that the disciplines of politi-cal science, international relations, international security, criminology, finance, accounting, and management science all come into play, to name just a few. Without a basic un-derstanding of these fields, it’s impossible to fully grasp the motives and targeting decisions behind cyberattacks, or to gauge their likely impact on our society. Well-rounded cyber practitioners will also need skills in team-building, manage-ment, and critical thinking to communicate to laymen and women the relative importance of a cyber event, and the steps needed to protect vital interests.

The discussion begun by CSPC and Montreat has ex-plored the role of character development and ethics in the cyber security space. Creating a well-rounded cyber work-force will require reevaluating how character, ethics, and civics are taught in our education system. Montreat has de-veloped a unique cyber curriculum, for instance, that em-phasizes ethics, in addition to technical and other skills. Similarly, our military academies teach cybersecurity skills

as part of a curriculum that also includes an honor code which emphasizes duty, integrity and loyalty to country. As we entrust cyber op-erators with vast amounts of sensitive infor-mation—and arm them with some of the most destructive digital tools imaginable—we must ensure that their technical skills are matched by integrity and loyalty of character.

In rising to the cybersecurity challenge, we can draw on lessons learned when the United States con-fronted novel threats in the past. That historic approach is a core competency of CSPC, and our model of acting as a con-vener and honest broker between the political parties, dif-ferent branches of government and between the public and private sectors is similarly well-suited for tackling a multi-faceted challenge like cybersecurity. This holistic approach that brings together stakeholders from the worlds of tech-nology, education, politics and policymaking is the only way to ensure that our nation’s prosperity and security is pro-tected in a networked, data-dependent world. Q

The growing list of major cyberattacks on this country amount to a modern-day “Sputnik” moment.

POliCy TAkEAWAyS

T Cybersecurity requires both an emphasis on strong technical solutions and educating the needed cyber workforce.

T Cyber curriculum needs to consider a holistic approach for cyber operators.

T new rules of the road will continue to evolve in cyberspace.

T Dialogue between government and the private sector is vital for cybersecurity preparedness, as well as the implementation of innovative cybersecurity solutions.


Space Policy

Harnessing Commercial Innovation to Secure the Highest Ground

es as reusable rockets, cube/micro-satellites, mega constel-lations, and advanced imagery and analytics, America’s pos-ture and architecture can be strengthened. Incorporating these advances will lead to greater resiliency, improved de-terrence of adversaries, and better effects at cheaper costs.

The project aims to focus on the following three core areas:

Military Applications. From remote sensing to commu-nications, early warning and global positioning, every aspect of U.S. military operations is inherently linked to outer space. Whereas space was once an exclusively strategic domain, space capabilities now penetrate down to a tactical level. Individu-al service members already enjoy the ability to call up satellite imagery and analysis, use satellite-based communications, and direct precision-guided munitions on the battlefield. Major advances in all these capabilities are now on the horizon.

Civilian Applications. Beyond military applications,

By focusing on “New Space” companies, the project will offer new and novel insights into the ways emergent capa-bilities can augment, support, and, in some cases, replace existing technologies and platforms. Through such advanc-

The Center for the Study of the Presi-dency & Congress’s Space Policy Project (SPP) seeks to identify real, actionable recommendations for the

integration of commercial technologies into the national security space architecture. Commer-cial technologies already play a significant role in America’s space defense, but the latest wave of new capabilities offers great (and cheaper) access to space that will strengthen and secure Ameri-ca’s leadership in space.


space is a vital domain for a wide range of civilian applica-tions such as communications, imagery, observation, posi-tioning, navigation, and timing used for industries ranging from utilities to finance, and from transportation to weath-er forecasting. As these missions are increasingly shared between government and civilian platforms, new questions will necessarily be raised. For example, what happens if an adversary strikes a commercial satellite on which a U.S. military payload or communications package was hosted? CSPC will look to identify trends in both the current and future role of space in U.S. national security, as well as the capabilities under development by our adversaries to coun-ter these strengths. The aim will be to develop an apprecia-tion of space as a current and continually emerging opera-tional domain.

Lowering Cost Barriers to Space. As with the tech-nology sector more broadly, over the last decade space tech-nology has increased dramatically in terms of capability even as costs have dropped precipitously. It is now possible for schools and universities—and even individuals—to develop small satellites (“cubesats”) and launch them into orbit as part of a larger payload.

Through the application of Silicon Valley management and development practices, SpaceX upended the launch model by developing and deploying reusable rockets. Simul-

taneously, Blue Origin—owned by Jeff Bezos—is developing the competing platform New Glenn with the goal of sending humans into sub-orbital space and eventually delivering pay-loads to space. Together, SpaceX and Blue Origin are working to drive down the cost of launches, making space increasingly accessible. Further, companies such as SpaceX, OneWeb and others are exploring the development and deployment of so-called “mega constellations”—networks of over 1,000 satel-lites to provide continuous global coverage and service.

Through a robust dialogue CSPC will look to establish an understanding and appreciation of the trends in the commer-

cial space sector, as well as identify over-the-horizon technol-ogies that are in the near, but foreseeable, future. These new innovations and technological developments offer opportu-nities to increase the capabilities and responsiveness of space assets in ways that achieve the objectives of the U.S. National Security Space Strategy. Developing advanced space systems with shorter deployment timelines, and distributing capabili-ties across multiple space platforms, holds out the promise of reducing the vulnerability and increasing the resiliency of our space architecture.

The national security space community has, understand-ably, been hesitant to fully embrace new and emergent capa-bilities offered by the “New Space” sector. Previous experi-

ences with commercial companies promised much, but often failed to deliver when companies went bankrupt or failed to meet lofty promises. New technology is also unproven and thus rep-resents high risk.

The technologies and capabilities associat-ed with commercial space have the potential to greatly shrink acquisition cycles and increase space capabilities at reduced cost, thus proving more responsive to the demands of battlefield

commanders and strategic policymakers. CSPC will thus in-vestigate areas in which these new technologies can be inte-grated into the overall national security architecture in the shortest amount of time, while maintaining and enhancing existing capabilities.

The objective of CSPC’s space initiative will be twofold: develop actionable recommendations for the regulatory, pro-curement, and oversight agencies; and facilitate a broader dia-logue on the implications of commercial space in the national security arena among all interested parties, including com-mercial operators and the national security community. Q

POliCy TAkEAWAyS

T Space is an increasingly contested domain for commercial and national security applications.

T the united States is a leader in commercial space innovation that is increasing the access to space and reducing its costs.

T u.S. national security agencies can benefit from the new capabilities and platforms being created by commercial space companies.

Over the last decade space technology has increased dramatically in terms of capability even as costs have dropped precipitously.


Future Policy Programs

At the Intersection of Politics & Innovation

The news media is constantly filled with stories of how the latest technological in-novation stands ready to transform the world. In some cases the innovation is

discussed as the panacea for a long-standing prob-lem, or else the disruptive solution for a moribund sector of the economy. In other cases technological innovation is presented as a threat to our economic or physical wellbeing by replacing human jobs, fur-thering income inequality, or even unleashing a con-flict between humans and artificial intelligence.

What is undeniable, however, is that the pace of techno-logical change continues to pick up speed even as the are-

na of politics and regulation lag far behind. The lack of un-derstanding of this dynamic by policymakers can result in counterproductive or misguided policy.

Across technology sectors an innovation economy is rapidly changing our society. Social media and data de-rived from a person’s activities online have created pow-erful tools for marketing, media, and politics. Artificial intelligence is changing how we interact with technology, and can be used to analyze vast amounts of data much faster than humans working with computers. Automa-tion stands poised to transform a wide range of indus-tries, and disrupt the very nature of work. New tools leveraging decentralized data and interconnected net-works like blockchain and other distributed ledgers are poised to transform record keeping, finance, and other fields. Advances in biotechnology are allowing us to ac-

cess and edit the very source codes of life.

Despite these transforma-tional advances, most Ameri-cans have no idea what goes on behind their computer or mobile screens. They are un-aware of how the massive amounts of data they gener-ate online are being used. The same can be said for most pol-icymakers. As a result the pub-lic debate on this vital issue of the direction of technological advancement is not well-in-formed. The issue touches on cyber hygiene and the need for better education on the impact of technology, or the modern equivalent of home economics. An informed de-


bate is also needed on the ownership of data and the vast revenues it generates.

Policymakers need to engage with private industry to create a regulatory space that balances the needs of inno-vators and the public interest. Artificial intelligence and au-tomation, for instance, have the potential to transform the relationship between humans and technology. Tools and platforms based on these technologies will change the effi-ciency and productivity of a wide range of fields, while also changing the needs for the human workforce. Some jobs may be replaced by artificial intelligence and automation, while others will be augmented or reshaped in ways that the current education and training fields have not anticipated. Our education system will need to be reformed to better emphasize adaptability throughout an individual’s career, and familiarity with advanced tools.

These transformational technological advances are al-ready having a profound impact in the realm of national security. A cyberattack carried out with the power of ar-tificial intelligence could do great damage to the United States, while augmenting cyber defenses with artificial in-telligence could greatly bolster our security. Automation and the use of “drones” or robots is already allowing the U.S. military to conduct operations that put the lives of fewer service members at risk. While the United States has

enjoyed advantages in these areas and technologies, how-ever, other nations are rapidly closing the gap. Policies that ensure continued innovation and research in these fields can help guarantee that the United States remains at the leading edge of this technology.

Tools like distributed ledger technology such as block-chain will allow for transformational changes to fields that require records of transactions, inventory, and data track-ing. Much attention has been focused on “cryptocurren-cies” such as Bitcoin, but by distributing the architecture of record keeping, this technology can transform a wide range

of existing fields. Applications range from the tracking of high value components through a supply chain to ensuring accurate and secure medical records. Yet this technology will also raise legitimate concerns about the security of dis-tributed architectures, and how they can be controlled by regulations that have assumed the existence of a central re-cord or record keeper.

Advances in biotechnology and gene editing are also providing unique capabilities to scientists and researchers. They hold out the promise of unique medical treatments that may defeat diseases that have plagued humanity for centu-

ries. In the wrong hands, however, these capabil-ities could resuscitate diseases that have long laid dormant, or make existing maladies more virulent. Once again policymakers need to fully understand the potential impacts of this technology, the better to enhance the broader “biopreparedness” of the U.S. homeland.

Policymaking in each of these areas is ham-strung by the cultural gap that exists between Washington and Silicon Valley, and the innovation community writ large. Washington tends to view

the hard-charging nature of technology innovators with skepticism, while the innovators have little patience for the procedural red tape of traditional policymaking.

CSPC is ideally positioned to bridge this gap through its mission of convening leaders from government and the pri-vate sector, especially with our emphasis on dynamism and agility in policy programs. Better communication between government and the private sector is essential to maintain-ing our leadership in these cutting-edge technologies. The United States simply cannot risk falling behind in these ex-citing technological arenas. Q

POliCy TAkEAWAyS

T the pace of technological change continues to accelerate even as the arena of politics and regulation lag far behind.

T transformational technological advances are already having a profound impact in the realm of national security.

T policies that enable innovation and research in multiple fields are necessary to keep the united States at the leading edge of these technologies.

The pace of technological change continues to pick up speed even as the arena of politics and regulation lag far behind.


Government Reform

Improving the Business of Government

Though government procurement may not be the trendiest buzzword in Wash-ington, there are few functions of govern-ment that more directly impact the lives

of the American public than procurement. There are also few functions of government more entangled in a complex web of rules and regulations that dictate how the federal workforce goes about its business.

Government procurement will never perfectly mirror the private marketplace for the simple reason that there is more than just a profit motive at play. Acquisitions are guided by a range of political and social goals that go well beyond getting “the best good at the best price.” While these goals are often laudable, there is a pressing need for modernization, reform, and simplification of procurement policies. In an era where the U.S. government increasing-ly procures an array of advanced technologies and digital services that are dependent on highly-skilled workforces, a 20th century industrial model driven by quotas and set-asides fails to meet the needs of the 21st century.

Simply put government procurement must better enable the drive for innovation that has made the United States the world’s preeminent economic power in the Information Age. That has become increasingly dif-ficult as complex rules and regulations have attached themselves to the gov-ernment procurement system like bar-nacles on a ship. The result has been a risk-averse, lowest-common-denomi-nator approach to procurement. Such a commodity-based mentality and pro-curement approach is mismatched to government purchases of advanced consulting, professional services, and Information Technology systems.

Acquiring advanced information technologies and cutting-edge defense systems requires the services of people

with highly marketable skills and specialized talents, where experience and expertise must necessarily trump price alone. In this environment, government program manag-ers need the flexibility and authority to run their programs in ways that encourage innovation and reward high perfor-mance, rather than being constrained by strait-jacket con-tracting processes designed to eliminate risk. Such a para-digm shift will require reforming both the system and the culture of government procurement.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Failure to reform the procurement culture will result in the U.S. govern-ment lagging further and further behind the rapid pace of

technological change in the private sec-tor. Henry Ford once said, “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said ‘a faster horse.’” With a few exceptions that CSPC highlights through case studies in its “Better Busi-ness of Government” report, govern-ment procurement officials too often look for “faster horses.”

With the “Better Business of Gov-ernment,” CSPC continues to educate policymakers on the importance of adopting a more “mission-oriented pro-curement” system in which program managers drive decision-making. Q

POliCy TAkEAWAyS

T Government procurement reflects a largely outdated approach better suited to an industrial economy versus a digital, service-based economy.

T program managers’ leadership and mission goals too often take the back seat to the contracting process.

T reform requires a shift to a “mission-oriented culture” rather than new regulations.

Section Three

Media Outreach and Leadership Development SuCCeSS in building The liberal World order as the foundation for “The american Century,” let alone victory in the Cold War and development of the world’s most productive economy, were never preordained. each milestone in that long journey required enlightened leadership in both the White house and Congress, and the support of an informed public. We are this country because presidents and Congressional leaders united to construct the interstate highway system; launch the modern space program by putting a man on the moon; advance the civil rights move-ment and strengthen social safety net programs; pass the Clean air and Water acts and other major pieces of environmental legislation; and lay the groundwork for the internet, giving america a head start on the information age. along the way virtually every modern president and his Congressional backers have had to make the agonizing choice to send u.S. troops into harm’s way, only to have some return in flag-draped cof-fins. Such are the burdens of global leadership.

at CSPC we have always viewed as core missions the recognition and celebration of enlightened leadership, and the development of the next generation of national leaders of character. We do that each year through our Presidential and international fellows leadership Conferences, and our annual Presidential fellows program. Through our aggressive media outreach efforts CSPC also helps inform the public and highlight the traits we believe are evident in our best leaders – strategic vision, civility and a passion for reform and national renewal.


26 | cen ter for t h e st u dy of t h e pr e si denc y & congr e ss

CSPC in the Media

Timely Commentary on National Challenges“Americans should instead show the world that

we can still debate complex and difficult challenges with civility, and unify in the face of crisis, in order to move forward together. That is the essence of Ameri-can greatness.”

CSPC President & CEO Glenn NyeThe Hill, October 13, 2017

“Confronted with a Sputnik moment in cyber-space, the United States needs to build a workforce grounded in ethics and fluent in technology, contex-tual thinking, and clear communications. Only such digital-age Renaissance men and women will be able to rise to the cyber challenges of our time.”

CSPC Senior Vice President Dan MahaffeeDefense One, September 25, 2017

“The cost of limiting AI intelligence being weap-onized could vastly exceed all of our nuclear prolifera-tion efforts to date. More troubling, the consequences of failure are equally existential.”

CSPC Distinguished Fellow Mike RogersThe Hill, September 21, 2016

“U.S. military and counterterrorism officials have never forgotten where the dark detour into [enhanced interrogation techniques] led — unreliable intelli-gence, demoralized interrogators, terrorists who still cannot be tried in a court of law because they were tor-tured, and a stench that still clings to America’s coun-terterrorism reputation these many years later.”

CSPC Senior Fellow James KitfieldThe New York Times, January 13, 2017

“The cyber threat isn’t tomorrow’s challenge; it’s today’s. It’s here, it’s real, and the sooner we recognize that and invest accordingly, the sooner we can defend ourselves.”

CSPC Distinguished Fellow Mike RogersDefense One, September 23, 2016


“Many lessons can be learned from past compro-mises, but as we ask ourselves why our political sys-tem seems to be failing, we need to better understand how the political environment has been weighted against cooperation and consensus building.”

CSPC Senior Vice President Dan MahaffeeThe Hill, September 9, 2017

“It’s important not only that policy and media lead-ers understand the reality of Russian aggression, and the diffuse and often innovative ways the Kremlin has found to exert influence and intimidate opponents, but that American and European constituencies do as well. Our leaders must marshal their resolve and ingenuity to high-light and oppose these tactics in all their forms.”

CSPC Distinguished Fellow Mike RogersThe Washington Times, December 26, 2016

“There is no doubt that when senior U.S. officials visit Turkey these days, they no longer encounter the re-liable NATO ally and Muslim democracy that the Unit-ed States once held up as a model for the Islamic world.” CSPC Senior Fellow James Kitfield The Atlantic, August 26, 2017

“We must avoid the knee-jerk reaction that [autonomous vehicles] equal job losses. The United States is a technology leader…and the focus should be on how these technologies will create new job oppor-tunities by ensuring U.S. leadership in this field.”

CSPC Senior Vice President Dan MahaffeeThe Hill, March 25, 2017

“In its savvy use of social media and the internet to recruit fighters and inspire atrocities by homegrown ‘lone wolves,’ ISIS far surpassed al-Qaida.”

CSPC Senior Fellow James KitfieldYahoo News, December 1, 2017


Annual Leadership Awards

Honoring Bipartisan Leadership & Strategic Vision

Each year during the Spring Presidential and International Fellows Leadership Conference, CSPC holds its annual awards dinner to honor leading public servants alongside the Fellows’ student leaders. CSPC gives three awards:

the Publius Award for leadership and bipartisanship in government; the Eisenhower Award for leadership in national security affairs; and the Hamilton Award, for economic or fiscal leadership. Some of our recent award winners include: Senator Roy Blunt, R-Mo.; Congress-man Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland; Senator Susan Collins, R-Me.; Sena-tor Bob Corker, R-Tn.; Senator Mark Warner, D-Va.; Defense Secre-taries Leon Panetta and Ash Carter; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen; Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke; Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Ca.; Senator John Warner, R-Va.: Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day o’Connor; Homeland Se-curity Secretary Tom Ridge; Senator Bill Frist, R-Tn.; Senator John Breaux, D-Louisiana; and Senator Chuck Hagel, R-Ne.

Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, and Senator Mark Warner, D-Virginia, accepting CSPC’s Publius Award for bipartisan leadership.

Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, and Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, receiving CSPC’s Publius Award for bipartisan leadership.


Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke accepting CSPC’s Hamilton Award for economic and fiscal leadership.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the recipient of CSPC’s Eisenhower Award for leadership in national security affairs.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter receiving CSPC’s Eisenhower Award for national security leadership.


Presidential Fellows

Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders

and governance. This unique non-res-ident program offers up to seventy-five top undergraduate and graduate students from leading colleges and universities across the globe a year-long opportunity to study the U.S. Presidency in all its com-plex facets.

The Presidential Fellows are selected by their colleges and universities with guidance from the Center. Fellows travel to the capitol twice a year to attend three-day conferences. At these policy workshops, Fellows discuss national issues with scholars of American government, senior government officials, and leaders from the fields of business, media, public policy, foreign affairs, and the military.

Recent speakers have included Jon Clifton, Deputy Di-rector of the Gallup World Poll; Dr. Donald Marron, Di-rector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advis-ers, and former acting director of the Congressional Bud-get Office; Dr. Vint Cerf, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, former project manager for the De-fense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and recognized co-inventor of the internet; Tom Ridge, former member of the United States House of Representatives, the 43rd Gov-ernor of Pennsylvania, and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security; and George Stephanopoulos, a noted alumnus of the Fellows Program and chief political corre-spondent for ABC News.

The centerpiece of the Fellowship is the student’s origi-nal research paper on the Presidency or Congress. Each stu-dent identifies a faculty advisor on his or her home campus and is appointed a mentor from a relevant field by the Cen-ter. Students make presentations at each conference, are el-

igible to receive four awards, and compete for publication in our annual anthology, “The Fellows Review.”

During the Spring Leadership Conference, Presidential Fellows also attend the Center’s Annual Awards Dinner honoring a leading public servant. Additionally, the four Fellows whose papers have been selected to receive top awards are recognized alongside the public servant being honored, and the Fellows have the opportunity to briefly present their research to an audience that includes many current and former high-level officials.

Fellows can come from any major or academic special-ization, but they all have strong academic credentials, a demonstrated interest in the institutions of the Presidency and Congress, and a desire to make public service a part of their careers.

Alumni of the Fellows program include Capitol Hill and White House staffers, award-winning journalists, CEOs of corporations and non-profit organizations, senior mili-tary leaders, and university presidents and deans. Many of our Fellows have been awarded the prestigious Rhodes, Marshall, Fulbright, Truman, and Gates Scholarships.

For more than four decades, CSPC’s Presidential Fel-lows Program has remained focused on one overriding goal: helping to develop successive generations of national lead-ers of character committed to public service. Q

For more than forty years, CSPC Presidential Fel-lows have been coming to Washington, D.C. to share

their outstanding research and schol-arship, and learn about leadership

Standout Presidential Fellows of 2017 flanked by CSPC Senior Vice President Dan Mahaffee (far left) and Fellows Program Director Jeff Shaffer (far right).

Section Four

On Strategy, Security and National RenewalCSPC haS a long Pedigree operating at the intersection of strategy and nation-al security, including playing a critical role in convening the 2006 iraq Study group, which was co-chaired by former Secretary of State and republican James baker, and former Congressman and democrat lee hamilton. at a critical juncture in the iraq war, the iraq Study group report provided valuable bipartisan policy options for turn-ing the tide in the conflict. The next year CSPC co-convened a similar, bipartisan af-ghanistan Study group, co-chaired by ambassador Thomas Pickering, CSPC Chair-man, and former national Security adviser general James Jones.

u.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have learned and adapted constantly during a decade-and-a-half of fighting a “global war against jihadi terror-ists,” as have our determined and adaptive enemies. after covering the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan over many years, CSPC Senior fellow James Kitfield spent recent years interviewing many of the top u.S. leaders in this long conflict in an effort to cap-ture those lessons in his book Twilight Warriors: The Soldiers, Spies and Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War (basic books, 2016). Their insights are distilled in “lessons from america’s longest War.”

in “a Strategy for american renewal,” former CSPC Chairman and President da-vid M. abshire, a co-founder of the Center for Strategic and international Studies and a former u.S. ambassador to naTo, draws on his career spent at the center of power in Washington to offer both a warning about a nation dangerously adrift, and an opti-mistic path forward. This essay is excerpted from abshire’s forthcoming, posthumous memoir, “Statesman: reflections on a life guided by Civility, Strategic leadership, and the lessons of history” (rowan and littlefield).



Counterterrorism

Lessons from America’s Longest War

The post-9/11 wars looks very different to the men and women who have led the fight. Not necessarily better, but more complex and nuanced than the common narrative of an endless and futile slog. U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement agencies have necessarily learned and adapted constantly during a decade and a half of fighting this “glob-al war on terrorists,” as have our determined and adaptive enemies. Twilight Warriors: The Soldiers, Spies and Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War (Ba-sic Books), which profiles the top U.S. leaders in this long conflict and draws on my own extensive reporting, attempts to capture those lessons.

Know your enemy. At various times the United States has been slow to grasp the ideology, motivations and strategies of our enemies, and the resulting misunderstandings have cost the nation dearly. Underestimating the ambition of Al Qaeda and its determination to draw U.S. forces into a quagmire in Afghanistan like the Soviet Army in the 1980s, the United States failed in the 1990s to take decisive action even after the group bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998, and nearly sunk the USS Cole in a 2000 suicide bombing. Only after suffering the worst attack on the U.S. homeland since Pearl Harbor on September 11, 2001, did the U.S. act decisively, combining U.S. airpower and Special Operations Forces with regional allies to successfully topple the Taliban regime in a matter of weeks and drive its Al Qaeda allies out of Afghanistan.

Once again U.S. officials underestimated the enemy,

however, allowing Bin Laden and his lieutenants to escape encirclement at Tora Bora in 2001, and prematurely turning their focus and resources to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Al Qaeda and the Taliban predictably regrouped in the famil-iar sanctuaries of Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, eventually launching a terrorist insurgency against over-stretched and under-resourced U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.

If anything, U.S. officials understood the sectarian dy-namic and potential enemy forces in Iraq even less. Even a cursory understanding of Iraq’s sectarian dynamic should have precluded the disastrous early decisions to disband the regular Iraqi Army and launch an aggressive “de-Baath-ification” campaign that drove Sunni officers and troops into the hands of the Sunni terrorist affiliate Al Qaeda in Iraq, where they swam in a swamp of Sunni grievance. The predictable result was a virulent terrorist insurgency that took the better part of a decade to subdue.

As a result of our intelligence failures and ignorance of our enemies, Iraq went from having almost nothing to do with Al Qaeda prior to the invasion, to being the center-piece of its global campaign to drive the United States out of the Middle East. And Al Qaeda nearly succeeded.

it takes a network to defeat a network. At its pinnacle of power, Al Qaeda became the base for a global terrorist insurgency, with Osama bin Laden and his core group funneling fighters, resources and “lessons learned” among a far-flung network of affiliates that stretched across an arc of instability from Southwest Asia all the way to North Africa.

Under the pioneering leadership of General Stanley McChrystal, Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), the secretive war-fighting subcomponent of U.S. Special Op-erations Command, adapted by incubating its own network-centric model of military operations. That model relied on an unprecedented synergy that developed in the war zones between Special Operations Forces, intelligence and law en-forcement agencies, and conventional military forces. The model of operations that McChrystal helped pioneer was most closely associated in the public mind with drone strikes

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been the longest and among the least satisfying in U.S. history. U.S. troops have been fighting in both countries for

well over a decade, and yet repeated attempts to de-clare victory and extricate ourselves from these con-flicts have failed. Little wonder that many Ameri-cans believe that both wars were costly mistakes.

By James Kitfield

cen ter for th e st u dy of th e pr e si denc y & cong r e s s | 33photo: USMc SGt. JUStiN UpDeGr aff

and the relentless counterterrorism raids such as Operation Neptune Spear, which brought Osama bin Laden to justice in 2011. At its hot core, this new, network-centric style of war-fare was predicated on hunting individual terrorists and oth-er extremists who hid in the dark corners of the world, and in plain sight as well.

The intense battle rhythm behind that new style of war-fare was unlike anything that had come before it. JSOC’s multiagency joint task forces and intelligence fusion centers

combined the skills of many disparate national and inter-national players into a unified, mission-focused whole. The streamlined model of operation the network enabled greatly condensed the traditional military-targeting cycle of “find, fix and finish” by constantly incorporating intelligence “ex-ploitation and analysis,” creating what the counterterrorism community called an “F3EA” style of operations. Within that operational model the once bright lines between intelligence gathering and operational targeting disappeared. JSOC’s

mantra of “it takes a network to defeat a network” became the rallying cry of a man-hunting juggernaut that McChrystal described to me as “the Amazon.com of counterterrorism.”

Counterterrorism versus Counterinsurgency. At some tipping point a campaign of terrorism can transform into a much larger and more widely-supported insurgency powerful enough to compete with government forces for control of territory. Three times in this long war U.S.

military commanders have confronted that dangerous tipping point: Iraq in 2006-7, Afghanistan in 2009-10, and Iraq and Afghanistan again in 2014-2017. Beyond that inflection point a strictly counterterrorism campaign of targeted strikes on terrorist leaders is ineffective in countering a determined and dug-in

insurgency. A more manpower intensive counterinsurgency campaign is required to clear enemy-held ground, hold it to protect the local population, and build governance as a means to win the populace to the government’s side.

Disagreements about the efficacy of counterterrorism versus counterinsurgency strategies led to some of the cost-liest mistakes of the post-9/11 wars. U.S. officials in Iraq were initially slow to even recognize the insurgency there until it was almost too late. When U.S. commanders faced a re-

U.S. military and intelligence forces have learned and adapted constantly during a decade and a half of fighting.


House of Saud. Saudi oil money and charities have exported Wahhabism to a far-flung network of fundamentalist mosques and madrassas throughout the Muslim world.

Understanding Al Qaeda’s “core” as an extremist ideolo-gy rooted in intolerance and violence, it’s easier to recognize that this movement didn’t end when Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. As fate would have it, that same year instability spread across the Middle East and Africa in the wake of Arab Spring upheavals, creating fertile ground for extremists. The increasingly bloody civil war that resulted in Syria, an epicen-ter of the Middle East’s sectarian divide between Sunnis and Shiites, would prove an almost ideal incubator for extremism and Salafi jihadism.

iSiS is Al Qaeda 3.0. In the Darwinian evolution of the terror wars survivors get stronger as they learn and adapt. So it was with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former chief of foreign fighter operations for Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), the most lethal of the many affiliates that constitute “Al Qaeda 2.O.” After the 2011 Arab Spring protests and the Syrian regime’s iron-fisted response ignited a sectarian civil war, al-Baghdadi realized that the same ratlines that AQI had used to funnel foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq to fight the U.S. military could be reversed, sending AQI’s Sunni jihadists the other way to carve a sanctuary out of the rotting corpse of Syria.

Baghdadi had served prison time in a U.S. detention cen-ter, where he formed bonds and alliances with a network of former senior Baathist military officers in Saddam Husse-in’s army. In 2013-2014, Baghdadi and his jihadists launched a series of daring prison breaks in Iraq to free them. Togeth-er they launched ISIS’ lightning offensive in the summer of 2014, improbably overrunning numerous Iraqi Army divi-sions and capturing roughly a third of both Syria and Iraq.

Understanding that it would resonate powerfully in Salafi ideology, Baghdadi proclaimed an Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and declared himself as its “caliph,” or ruler, attracting an estimated 40,000 foreign fighters to ISIS’ black banner. Adopting Bin Laden’s strategy of attack-ing the West as a path towards greater legitimacy in the ter-ror pantheon, he formed an “external affairs unit” that was behind terrorist “spectaculars” in Paris and Brussels. Many former Al Qaeda affiliates subsequently switched their alle-giance to ISIS. The group became expert at online recruit-ment and radicalization, inspiring “lone wolf” terrorist at-tacks in San Bernardino, Orlando, Nice, Barcelona, Berlin, London and New York.

surgent Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan in 2009, there were senior officials in the White House and the national command authority who argued for choosing a much less manpower-intensive counterterrorism strategy of targeted killings to turn the tide. General McChrystal’s nearly year-long argument for a more holistic counterinsurgency strat-egy eroded the critical trust between his staff and the White House, ultimately leading to McChrystal’s dismissal as com-mander in Afghanistan.

General David Petraeus, who replaced McChrystal after leading the successful counterinsurgency campaign in Iraq in 2007-2008, understood that the mission in Afghanistan was to keep the country from once again becoming an Al Qaeda sanctuary, which required halting the momentum of the Taliban insurgency, and accelerating the training of Af-ghan security forces. “And you can’t do that with a counter-terrorism strategy of man-hunting alone! You can hunt men all day long, but if you don’t clear territory and hold it, then the enemy is just going to keep regenerating,” he told me in an interview for Twilight Warriors. “So anyone who believed we could win in Afghanistan with counterterrorism opera-tions alone was mistaken. There is no foundation for that idea whatsoever.”

History will show that the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan were largely successful in stabilizing those countries and turning back insurgen-cies led by Al Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban, respectively. Those gains were put at risk, however, by the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces, despite historical evidence sug-gesting that insurgencies take a decade or more to defeat.

Core Al Qaeda is an ideology. The bond that truly unites core Al Qaeda with its far-flung affiliates and other Sunni extremist groups is an ideology, specifically Salafi jihadism. Sunni Salafis are fundamentalists who read the Quran literally and believe the only true Islam is the harsh and uncompromising form practiced in the days of the Prophet Mohammed and his acolytes in the 7th century. Salafi jihadists reject any separation of church and state in favor of a harsh interpretation of Islamic Sharia Law, and they believe it is their duty to impose this medieval version of Islam on “apostates” and “non-believers” alike, by extreme violence if necessary. The chief guardians and exporters of this ultraconservative strain of Islam are the Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, home to the holiest sites in Islam and the place where Wahhabi teaching are considered the official form of Sunni Islam, and are sponsored by the state and the ruling

There was a fatal flaw, however, in Baghdadi’s strategy of establishing a radical Islamist caliphate. While pow-erful in the short- and mid-term, the caliphate gave the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition a known address to target. As of this writing, ISIS’ twin capitals of Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria have fallen to the U.S.-led coalition spear-headed on the ground by Iraqi Secu-rity Forces and Syrian Kurdish forces. Whatever remnants of ISIS survive will almost certainly go underground to wage a more traditional campaign of terror from the shadows, waiting for the right conditions to coalesce before unveiling “Al Qaeda 4.0.”

torture doesn’t Work. After President Trump campaigned on a promise that “torture works” and promised to bring back waterboarding and “a hell of a lot worse,” it was inevitable that a debate would ensue over whether to bring back the CIA’s discarded program of “enhanced interrogation techniques” that much of the world views as torture. For their part, the U.S. military and most counterterrorism officials have never forgotten where that detour into darkness led – unreliable intelligence, demoralized interrogators, guilty terrorists who still cannot be tried in a court of law because they were tortured, and a stench that still clings to America’s counterterrorism reputation these many years later.

The most prominent test case where a single terrorist suspect was interrogated using both the F.B.I.’s tradition-al approach and the C.I.A.’s enhanced techniques was Abu Zubaydah, the first high-value Qaeda operative captured af-ter Sept. 11. Held at a C.I.A. secret “black site” prison, Zubay-dah was initially interrogated by a two-man F.B.I. team. By building a rapport with the suspect and painstakingly breaking down his cover story, the agents learned for the first time from Zubaydah that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. They also extracted the potentially critical intelligence that an American Qaeda operative, Jose Padilla, was plotting to explode a radiologi-cal “dirty bomb” inside the United States.

Later the C.I.A. took over the interrogation, and for the first time a prisoner was subjected to “enhanced techniques” that included sleep deprivation, hard slaps, stress positions,

prolonged confinement in coffin-like containers and more than 80 rounds of mock drowning. At the end of the tor-ment Zubaydah was a broken man, but he had surrendered no more actionable intelligence.

Killing terrorist Leaders doesn’t

equal Victory. Even if ISIS’s al-Baghdadi is ultimately captured or killed, history suggests that another true believer in the Salafi jihadist creed will step forward to take his place as ISIS’ leader. Similarly, the Somali Al Qaeda affiliate Al Shabab survived the 2013 death of its mercurial leader Ahmed Abdi Godane; Al Qaeda survived the 2011 death of Bin Laden; Al Qaeda in the

Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) survived the 2011 death of the charismatic, American-born leader Anwar al-Awlaki; and Al Qaeda in Iraq lived to terrorize another day after the 2006 elimination of the murderous Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. What counterterrorism officials call “decapitation of leadership” is an important tactic for keeping these groups looking over their collective shoulders, but U.S. military and intelligence officials learned the hard way that as a war-winning strategy, it is a proven failure.

Meanwhile, the man most responsible for crafting the greatest terrorist hunting network in history worries that targeting operations are deceptive absent a workable poli-cy to address the conditions that give rise to Islamist ex-tremism, and a broader strategy for breaking the chain of radicalization. They can give the illusion of progress, Gen-eral Stanley McChrystal said in an interview, where little actually exists. Because of their often antiseptic nature, of-ten with no U.S. troops placed in harm’s way and the lethal blow landed by a drone, the threshold for approving such operations is usually lower than for manned missions, mak-ing them all the more tempting from a policymaker’s stand-point. In the wrong circumstances targeted killings are like a narcotic, McChrystal told me, lulling decision makers into a false sense of accomplishment where showy gestures are confused with solving root problems. Q

James Kitfield is a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress



I am a historian at heart and by training. I grew up read-ing about the heroic statesmanship of leaders like George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madi-son, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, Rutherford Hayes, and Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt. These men and their stories inspired me to attend and graduate from the Unit-ed States Military Academy at West Point, and to earn a doctorate in history from Georgetown University. They in-stilled in me a lifelong love of narrative history, and steered me towards a career in public service.

For much of my career I led the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the think tank I co-founded in 1962 with the great strategist Admiral Arleigh Burke. For decades during the Cold War and afterwards, CSIS has brought together individuals from both sides of the politi-cal aisle to debate the important issues that bore on na-tional strategy and government reform. The Center has al-ways served as a convener, reaching out to the best and the brightest from numerous fields of expertise and bringing

them together with officials from the executive and legisla-tive branches. At the Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, where I served as president for the first decade of the 21st century, we continued with that same tradition.

In a long career leading think tanks and working in both the executive and legislative branches of government, I have wrestled with many of the issues that have come to define America, both our prosperity at home and outsized role in the world. I have had the privilege to work with several of our nation’s great modern leaders, men and women who have fostered trust through civility and demonstrated stra-tegic vision, and who knew how to think anew when neces-sary. I have also seen leaders squander trust and lack civility. I was personally approached for help in saving the presiden-cies of both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan at the lowest point in their White House tenures, during the Watergate and Iran-Contra scandals, respectively. I declined the for-mer and accepted the latter request for help based on the deceptively simple element of trust, and how much faith I had in each president’s sincerity and character.

As I write this at the end of my career, our country has lost its sense of strategic direction and common purpose. Our politics have entered a period of hyper-partisanship and gridlock. Overseas we are transitioning from a unipolar world of uncontested American power to a multipolar world where we face challenges to our interests and security from multiple directions. Allies question our once trusted leader-ship. Dangers gather on every front. Put simply, our country is in deep trouble.

We have come to this impasse in large part because of a great deterioration of civility over the past decade and a half. Today, too many in Congress, including many in the so-called “Tea Party,” claim to revere the Constitution, and yet they reject the spirit of consensus-building and compromise that created it in the first place. The Constitutional Conven-tion in Philadelphia was an exercise in bargaining and com-promise by men from states large and small, free and slave, rich and poor, farming and trading. To deal with those pro-found differences, the Framers had to negotiate and compro-mise at every turn. To allow future leaders to improve the

My life has spanned the Great De-pression, World War II, and the rocky aftermath of the Cold War. I saw our nation emerge from the

Second World War as the most powerful in the world. I fought in the Korean War. I served in gov-ernment during the Vietnam War, which divided the nation. I watched as our nation came togeth-er in response to the horror of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and then came apart over the war in Iraq. As an “elder statesman,” I offered counsel to our nation’s leaders in the aftermath of both those tumultuous events. The United States of America that today has risen to the heights of global power was forged in fire and hardship, each step in that long ascent a conscious decision to persevere and prevail.

Parting Shots

A Strategy for American RenewalBy David abshire


imperfect bargain they made, they also built into the Constitution enormous flexibility through the power of amend-ment, suggesting the perpetual need for reform. Reform is both a core Con-stitutional value and a central theme throughout American history, an in-stinct for self-improvement and belief in the possibility of an ever more perfect union that served as the inspiration for many of our proudest accomplishments as a nation.

The “miracle of Philadelphia” is a story of compromise to its core. Indeed, practically the only matter on which the Framers would not compromise once they committed themselves to a union of democratic states was the very idea of the United States of America. As the Founders ex-ited Independence Hall following their secret deliberations, a fellow citizen asked Benjamin Franklin what form of gov-ernment they had settled upon. Franklin’s answer, and the warning it implies, echoes down through the ages. “A repub-lic, if you can keep it.”

Today too many politicians seem utterly opposed to any of the compromises required for our Constitutional system of republican federalism to function at all. It must be their way, or no way. That fundamental lack of civility and respect among political partisans has in turn produced a profound deficit of trust. And just as civility is the springboard for

trust, so too is trust the springboard for compromise and cooperation, the es-sential ingredients of democratic gov-ernance. Without them our leaders lack the political consensus required to take the country to higher ground. So on top of this deficit of civility and trust, we

also confront a leadership deficit. We as a people are now living with the bitter fruits of this

dysfunction. We can see it in the political gridlock that led to the downgrading of the United States’ credit rating for the first time in history. It’s evident in the routine budgetary im-passes that diminish the strength of an already stressed U.S. military even as dangers gather, and in domestic infrastruc-ture that was once the envy of the world, now crumbling into disrepair and obsolescence. It’s there for all the world to see in a political discourse of embarrassing crudeness and banal-ity. We are in danger of becoming a nation so absorbed by our divisions and bitter internal squabbles that we no longer at-tempt great deeds, nor dare lead free peoples.

Can American exceptionalism be preserved, and trust and civility returned to our nation’s capital? I believe that is not only possible, but absolutely necessary. If I were to advise the next generation, I would thus suggest acquaint-ing themselves with the wisdom and habits of our best lead-ers. Their examples would tell us to reinvigorate a politics

The author, Special Counselor to the President David Abshire (third from the left), meeting with President Ronald Reagan (left) and Vice President George H.W. Bush (second from the right). Abshire was widely credited with helping to save the Reagan presidency during the Iran-Contra scandal.


would later abandon to his everlasting regret. Let me explain what I mean by grand strategy and stra-

tegic vision. When writing about a strategic mindset, I am referencing habits of conceptualization that bring order to the complex interactions between governments and peo-ples, the better to get the big, global issues right. The kind of strategic leadership that Roosevelt and Eisenhower exhib-ited requires marshalling the best and brightest individuals, regardless of political leanings, to examine issues from all angles, and thus developing the kinds of comprehensive ap-

proaches that are the essence of Grand Strategy. Of course strategies in wartime, when the lifeblood of

the nation is at stake, are about marshalling troops and re-sources to defeat an enemy. The perfect military strategy, however, was defined by Sun Tzu, who described it as win-ning against a foe without having to fight, as we did with vic-tory in the Cold War. But a true “Grand Strategy” takes into account all elements of the nation’s well-being and health –cultural, socio-economic, technological, military and geo-political. It harnesses all elements of national power to a strategic blueprint for progress.

I mention strategic vision and a thirst for progress in tandem because they are integral to the character of many of our best leaders, and to the nation as a whole. In sizing up America in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville noted, “The great privilege of America does not consist in being more enlightened than other nations, but in being able to repair the faults they may commit.”1 That’s why I have always believed that reform is critical to the enduring success of nations. The desire to look anew at the old ways of doing things has played a central role in my lifelong work leading think tanks.

When he was elected President, Ronald Reagan was

of lively, robust debate within a framework of respect and civil behavior. Only by shifting our national discussion from the emotional to the intellectual, from impugning personal motives to embracing shared objectives, can trust take root again and grow strong enough to enable our system of gov-ernance to function as it was designed.

Franklin D. Roosevelt showed uncanny strategic vision and a burning desire to reform the old ways both in his New Deal programs to pull a staggering nation out of the Great Depression, and with his strategic pivot to prepare the na-tion to fight and win World War II. Roosevelt was a lifelong Democrat who was ferocious-ly partisan in his early time in office. And yet as need dictated, Roosevelt underwent a remarkable transformation. He became a master of civility, reaching out and working with Republicans as the war clouds gathered, eventually recruiting even isolationists into a unified front to achieve victory. He knew how to think anew, reform and organize the nation, and bring in those with the most tal-ent to face the great challenges of his time.

Throughout my career I have personally witnessed trust similarly achieved through civility. By “civility” I do not mean simply following rules of etiquette. Nor does ci-vility require that you agree with someone else or sacrifice strongly held beliefs or opinions. Rather, true civility starts with the practice of respectful listening. From that under-appreciated talent understanding can be gained, which in turn serves as the basis for honest dialogue that builds trust. Such honest and respectful exchanges foster creativity in developing solutions to common challenges, the ultimate goal in the art of self-governance.

Dwight Eisenhower also exhibited the leadership traits I most value and espouse: civility, a progressive drive and strategic vision. With his experience leading the largest military invasion in history, Eisenhower was exception-ally well-suited to the challenges of his time as president. He recognized the great scope and danger of the Soviet threat, and launched “Project Solarium” to determine the best strategy for confronting it. He developed a “long haul” strategy for underwriting military power with sustainable economic growth. More than any President since James Monroe, Eisenhower established parameters for using and husbanding U.S. military power, resisting immense pres-sure to intervene on behalf of the French at Dien Ben Phu in Vietnam, a restraint that his successor Lyndon Johnson

If current trends are not reversed, American power will continue to wane, the prosperity of our people will continue to deteriorate, and radical elements will take root in the body politic.

Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve (Cambridge: Sever and Francis, 1863), 294.

known as a fierce Cold Warrior, a strong conservative, and an unapolo-getic partisan. However, on a person-al level, the man himself embodied the principles of civility. His applica-tions of the principles of civility were natural and easy for him, not because he was an actor by profession, but be-cause at his core, he was a gentle and profoundly decent man.

As I personally witnessed, Ron-ald Reagan knew what he believed, and why he believed it, and he had the courage of his convictions. This shone through, and Reagan’s innate civility and trustworthiness was ul-timately able to bridge the chasm of forty years of hostility and Cold War distrust that yawned between him and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev. By practicing what I call the “martial art of civility,” these two leaders suc-ceeded in changing the world.

When analyzing the partisan dysfunction that increas-ingly characterizes American politics today, many commen-tators point to the lack of a unifying threat such as Ronald Reagan confronted with the Soviet Union, or Franklin Roo-sevelt and Harry Truman faced in Nazi Germany and Impe-rial Japan, or Abraham Lincoln faced with Civil War. I be-lieve they are wrong. Indeed, I believe such an existential threat becomes clearer with each passing day: the decline of America as a global power and as the standard bearer for the Western alliances of free peoples. The lights on the “shining city on a hill” that Ronald Reagan championed are dimming. If current trends are not reversed, American power will con-tinue to wane, the prosperity of our people will steadily de-teriorate, and radical elements will take root in the body politic. This debilitating process of decline has already be-gun. If this slide is not reversed then the current and fu-ture stewards of the “great American experiment” will have failed, earning shame from all their forebears stretching back to the Founding Fathers.

I have no doubt what is needed to restore an America without peer: reform, grand strategy, and inspired presiden-tial leadership. Reform, because a driving hunger for self-im-provement is woven into our national fabric, and has seen us through many dark days. A grand strategy is required to iden-tify the most promising pathways for achieving our long-term

goals, while ensuring a reasoned rela-tionship between ends and means. In-spired presidential leadership because only our chief executive and command-er-in-chief can rally the people to em-brace a cause greater than themselves.

Despite the outsized shadow we have cast over the past century, Ameri-can preeminence and strategic lead-ership were never guaranteed or pre-ordained. Our exalted position was attained through strategic acumen and great national sacrifice, and our leader-ship was bestowed by those allies who chose freely to follow our example. That kind of leadership is precious and tenuous, and must always be protected with great vigilance.

Doing so requires that current and future stewards in the White House and Congress must ex-hibit and hone the skills exemplified by our most inspira-tional leaders going back to the Founding Fathers. As a soci-ety and a people, we too need to reacquaint ourselves with the stories of these heroic leaders from our collective past. We also need to pay attention to what is happening around us. The worthy citizen is engaged in society, not standing on the sidelines in repose, but aware, constantly learning and applying those lessons to the betterment of all, taking part in the events that will shape their own slice of history. Only thus can we preserve what Abraham Lincoln called “the world’s last, best hope.” Should any generation of Ameri-cans fail in that task, as Lincoln warned, then history will not forgive them.

If I can emphasize just one enduring lesson from my own life, it’s that realizing the promise of our shared des-tiny requires trust in each other, today as much as ever be-fore. Strategic leadership and the tonic of reform – central themes in every American success, and guiding lights along the pathway to the American dream – require trust in each other. Our greatest leaders have been able to conjure that trust even in some of our darkest moments as a nation. As I contemplate the end of my own long career, that thought gives me hope for future generations of Americans. Q

The late David M. Abshire was formerly the chairman and president of the Cen-ter for the Study of the Presidency & Congress. This essay is excerpted from his forthcoming memoir, “Statesman: Reflections on a Life Guided by Civility, Strategic Leadership, and the Lessons of History” (Rowan and Littlefield).


Ambassador David AbshireEdited by James Kitfield • Foreword by Evan Thomas

TheStatesmanReflectionson a Life

Guided by Civility,

Strategic Leadership,

and theLessons of

History

StatesmanThe

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